Elie Wiesel Lose Humanity

“In the wagon where the bread had landed, a battle had ensued. Men were hurling themselves against each other, trampling, tearing at, and mauling each other” (Wiesel, 101). Wiesel later talks about how he did not fight for the bread because he knew he would never obtain it. He believes that bread and soup are his life, and he has a starved stomach. This is just another example of the dire circumstances he had to go through.

Despite seeing many other hangings while in the camp, Wiesel notes that the death of the young boy was the only time any of the prisoners wept (Night, pg. 63). Throughout the book, it is seen that victims of the Holocaust were starved, overworked, beaten, and faced with death on a daily basis, yet many remained emotionless. In Wiesel's words, “These withered bodies had long forgotten the bitter taste of tears,” (Night, pg. 63) The prisoners had distanced themselves from emotions in order to survive the unfathomable conditions they lived in. Many became so unfeeling that they could watch thousands die daily without showing any signs of grief of sorrow. However, when the inmates witnessed the hanging of an innocent child, they were not able to deny their sadness any longer. They were left heartbroken and in tears. Although entire towns were murdered daily in the gas chambers, watching a child die at such close proximity was too much for the prisoners to handle, and their emotional distress could not be controlled. Their reaction marks a turning point in which they finally realized the severity of the horrors around them, as they could no longer mask their feelings. When Wiesel says “That night, the soup tasted of corpses,” he is demonstrating how the hanging caused him to feel the presence of death no matter where he was (Night, pg. 65). The daily ration

He was once kind, thoughtful, and caring of others. But, as his sufferings increased, he becomes heartless, filled with hate, and begins to abandon all that he once held dear. He stops praying early during his imprisonment, and in general becomes selfish. His only concern is himself, and how he is going to eat and survive until the next day. Once concerned about others, he is now focused on himself. Wiesel also feels “free” when his father dies, presumably because he no longer has to look out for or take care of anyone but himself. Wiesel also details another example of changing behavior in the camp, as he tells the story of a son who killed his father simply for a piece of stale bread. These and other behavioral changes describe the kind of environment Wiesel and others were exposed to in the

Wiesel is commenting on the fact that everyone was living with false hopes and not really paying attention to the problem. The Germans had put the Jews in the ghetto, but they didn't interfere with anything going on inside until it was decided that the people were to be sent away. With the Germans temporarily out of the picture, the Jews would be the likely ruling force. But their need for hope kept them from realizing that they were captive. Instead, they convinced themselves that the ghetto was a safe, secure place. They were living in a fantasy land.

Over sixty million fatalities occurred over the course of the Holocaust. Most people are not aware of this, let alone what the Jewish population endured. The memoir Night, written by Elie Wiesel, is significant in educating people about the Holocaust. After being split up from the rest of their family, protagonist Elie, and his father are forced to endure treacherous working conditions at the concentration camp of Auschwitz and are treated as nothing more than animals. They are starved, called horrendous names, and physically beaten, all examples of dehumanization.

When they were removing the jews from their second concentration camp the packed them by a hundred in train carts while everyone was starving. This made the the prisoners minds open to do anything for food. When a bystander saw the cart with prisoners inside inside it, he threw a piece of bread into Wiesel’s cart allowing him see a scary sight, “Men were hurling themselves against each other, trampling, tearing at and mauling each other” (Wiesel 101). This shows that their hunger was to the point that they are willing to hurt each other without a single thought about their actions. Nobody cared if the person next to themselves was getting killed as long as they had a better chance of food. Also, when everyone was fighting Wiesel saw a old man crawling. He then figured out that the man was hiding a piece of bread next to chest in his hand. Soon after Wiesel saw something you would only animals would do “ Meir, my little Meir. don't you recognize me… you're killing your father… i have bread… for you too… for you too… The old man old man mumbled something, groaned, and died” (Wiesel 101). The son lost all emotions for try to survive that he killed his own father for scraps of bread. He killed him with even thinking about it and showed no remorse afterwards. For this reason, the prisoners showed their loss of compassion by completing these nightmarish

Here, Elie watches as the prisoners become savages as they slowly lose their innocence. Wiesel’s use of hyperbole and the exaggeration of context allows him to emphasize that these prisoners have lost their innocence by creating a disturbing picture in the reader’s minds. By imagining this picture, the reader clearly understands that these prisoners have lost their innocence as they can see that they are turning into savages ready to kill. The reason that these deadly fights broke out were all because of pieces of bread. Wiesel shows that these prisoners have lost their innocence because they are willing to kill for a piece of bread by explaining, “these emaciated creatures ready to kill for a piece of bread” Wiesel (101). Wiesel uses the symbol of bread throughout the book to depict hope and life. In order to survive these prisoners must resort to savage and kill their fellow prisoners. Even after acquiring a piece of bread, prisoners still aren’t satisfied or innocent. One prisoner’s “eyes

Early on in the memoir, Wiesel has a very strong faith for a young boy. He states, “I was twelve. I believed profoundly” (Wiesel 1). His faith is established early on in order to make a great contrast between his faith in the beginning versus the end of the memoir. Before he is deported, Wiesel wants to study the Cabbala and become a master in Jewish mysticism. He finds a master, Moshe the Beadle, to teach him. The teaching does not last long; however, before Moshe is deported and sent to be killed. Moshe’s stories are the first glimpse of the cruelty and dehumanization that is to come later on in the memoir. Wiesel states, “Without passion, without haste, they slaughtered their prisoners” (4). The Gestapo show little to no emotion when killing these deportees, which shows how they view them as inhuman. The people of Sighet do not believe Moshe’s warning, and pass him off as just wanting attention. Their faith in humanity and their God allow them to have hope, and they do not believe that any of his stories are real nor could happen to them. However, their faith is proven wrong and

Wiesel’s father and other Jews were given brutal beatings for reasons, even asking questions. So if the Jews did something wrong or something the SS officers didn’t like, then the Jews were beaten or got several blows to the head or a different area many times. When the SS officers threw bread crumbs into the train and all the men, women, and kids fought and killed for it, that was physical abuse. It’s physical abuse because the SS officers know that the Jews are going to fight for the bread crumbs and the SS officers did it on purpose so the Jews could physically abuse each

To make matters even worse him and his father were separated from his mom and sister, men to the left women to the right, he did not realize “that this was the moment in time and place where” he was leaving his mother and sister forever. (29). Since his father was a tad bit old to survive in the camp alone Wiesel took on the role of the father. Any chance he could get to save his father he did, if his father needed food he would get it, if he father was about to be sent to the crematorium he would make sure that it would not happen. Wiesel learned that only the strong survive and the weak get killed.

Wiesel does a wonderful job with his use of pathos throughout the speech by making the audience reflect on his words and creates a strong emotional reaction for what is being said. From being a survivor of the Holocaust, one of the darkest parts of history as well as the most shallow times for humanity. Immediate sympathy is drawn from the audience. When he states that himself endured the horrible conditions these people had to live in. He then explains to us that the people there, “No longer felt hunger, pain, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it.” With saying this it brings forth feelings of guilt, one of the most negative emotions to accumulate a reaction towards these events. Also numerous people throughout the world long for world peace and to hear the inhumane acts that was once acted upon an innocent man, makes their stomach's sink. Wiesel defines its derivation, as “no difference” and uses numerous comparisons on what may cause indifference, as a “strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur.” Like good and evil, dark and light. Wiesel continues to attract the audience emotionally by stating this he is aware of how tempting it may be to be indifferent and that at times it can be easier to avoid

“The old man mumbled something, groaned, and died. Nobody cared. His son searched him, took the crust of bread, and began to devour it.” (101) In this statement it was interesting how no one in general cared, but even his own son did not seem to care, he only took something for himself. In this place the son would have never done that if it was not for the situation but the camp had changed everyone to become selfish. The longer they stayed in the camp the more greedy they became. In the book it was also said how when someone died in a cattle car they took off their clothes and threw them out naked. They ended up using the clothes for more heat only for them. It is shocking how everyone only cares about themselves but it is also understandable because each person is fighting to live at that point. There was also a different part in the book where a son and father were separated during a run, the father assumed it was by accident but it ended up being because the father was not keeping up with the son and the son assumed he would be better off alone. (91) This is another example where the camp has changed people into heartless self centered people. The father ended up making it but could not find his son and the son would have been better off to stick with his dad but he was only thinking about what he thought was best. In this part Wiesel says that he prays that he can have the strength to not turn into a selfish person. This shows that he wants to stick with his dad no matter what the circumstances are but he also knows that there could be a chance that he could have that mindset.

From the start, Wiesel was told by a prisoner to lie about his age, and this strange encounter helped him make it as far as he did. Wiesel tells us, “No, Two steps from the pit we were ordered to turn to the left and made to go into a barracks” (Wiesel, 22). They assumed they were to go into the crematory, which would be the end for them, but in a sudden twist of events they were told to turn and go into a barracks. It wasn't wrong or right for them to lie about theirages because it was survival, and regret was already entering their minds and it stayed with them even after they found out they were going to stay alive, but they did what was right for them to survive in the

Imagine, losing the part of you that makes you unique, or being treated like you were worth absolutely nothing. Think about losing all that you hold on to: your family, friends, everything that you had. Imagine, being treated like an animal, or barely receiving enough food to live. All of these situations and more is what the Jews went through during the Holocaust. During the period of 1944 - 1945, a man by the name of Elie Wiesel was one of the millions of Jews that were experiencing the wrath of Hitler’s destruction in the form of intense labor and starvation. The novel Night written by the same man, Elie Wiesel, highlights the constant struggle they faced every single day during the war. From the first acts of throwing the Jews into

Wiesel’s inclusion of this quote shows readers that he was appalled by the inhuman prisoners and concentration camp leaders. One of the reasons for Wiesel becoming so traumatized by the evils of humanity is his prior belief that people would help each other in times of need. Halperin writes, “Before coming to Auschwitz, Eliezer had believed that twentieth-century man was civilized. He had supposed that people would try to help one another in difficult times; certainly his father and teachers had taught him that every Jew is responsible for all other Jews” (Halperin 33). Convinced that people were kind and that Jews would help one another, Wiesel was greatly disappointed after coming to a tragic realization in the concentration camps. Wiesel was robbed, pushed, beaten, and betrayed by his fellow Jews at the camps. Contrary to his prior belief that Jews should be working together, the other Jews invested in themselves. They cared, solely, about their own well being. In including the evils of the other prisoners, Wiesel is able to show readers that due to the lack of innocence within the concentration camps, it was inevitable for him to lose his